Former Navy F/A-18F pilot Lt. Ryan Graves testified before Congress in 2023 that beginning in 2014, pilots with his VFA-11 'Red Rippers' squadron encountered unknown objects 'on an almost daily basis' in restricted military airspace off the US East Coast. The objects appeared on radar and infrared sensors, often at altitudes of 20,000-30,000 feet, and demonstrated capabilities beyond any known technology. Graves described objects remaining stationary in high winds, performing instant acceleration, and lacking any visible propulsion. He stated that a near-midair collision occurred between an F/A-18 and an unknown object. Graves founded Americans for Safe Aerospace to encourage military personnel to report UAP encounters without stigma.
“UAP are in our airspace, but they are grossly underreported. If everyone could see what we see on a regular basis, the national conversation would change.”
What they said vs. what the evidence shows
“Many UAP reports from military pilots can be attributed to drones, weather balloons, or sensor artifacts. Pilot testimony alone, without corroborating data, is insufficient.”
— AARO / Skeptical analysts · Aug 2023
SourceFrom “crazy” to confirmed
The Claim Is Made
This is the moment they called it crazy.
When a highly trained military pilot walks into Congress and testifies that unidentified objects are appearing near fighter jets on a near-daily basis, most people would expect the government to take it seriously. When that pilot is a decorated Navy aviator with nothing to gain and a security clearance to protect, the claim deserves scrutiny—not dismissal.
This is exactly what happened in July 2023 when Lieutenant Ryan Graves, a former F/A-18F pilot with the Navy's VFA-11 "Red Rippers" squadron, appeared before the House Oversight Committee to describe his squadron's systematic encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, off the US East Coast beginning in 2014.
Graves didn't come alone. He brought documentation: radar data, infrared sensor readings, and corroborating accounts from multiple pilots. He described objects that appeared at altitudes of 20,000 to 30,000 feet, moving in ways that contradicted every known principle of physics and aeronautics. Some remained stationary in winds that should have pushed them across the sky. Others accelerated instantaneously from zero to supersonic speeds without visible propulsion or sonic booms. One object came within feet of his aircraft in what he characterized as a near-midair collision.
For decades, the default institutional response to such claims was simple: dismiss them. The military and intelligence community rarely acknowledged UAP encounters officially. Pilots who reported them risked ridicule and career damage. The official narrative treated the subject as a fringe concern, something for conspiracy theorists and late-night television, not something worthy of serious investigation by serious people.
But the evidence supporting Graves's account changed the calculation. His squadron's encounters weren't anecdotal. They appeared on multiple sensor systems simultaneously—radar, infrared, electronic warfare systems. Multiple pilots witnessed the same events. The encounters were so frequent and consistent that they became part of operational concern, prompting discussion among commanding officers and intelligence personnel.
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In 2021, the Pentagon released an unclassified report acknowledging that military personnel had encountered UAPs across multiple decades and locations. While the report stopped short of confirming Graves's specific claims, it validated the core assertion: these encounters were real, documented, and occurring within military operational areas.
What makes Graves's testimony "partially verified" rather than fully verified is straightforward: the objects themselves remain unidentified. No one has definitively explained what these objects are. But that's precisely the point. Graves never claimed to have identified them. He claimed something far more modest and provable: that his squadron encountered objects that demonstrated capabilities unexplained by current technology and that these encounters happened repeatedly, with documentation, with multiple witnesses, and with official awareness.
The real significance isn't whether these objects are extraterrestrial, classified foreign technology, or something else entirely. It's that military pilots experienced something real, reported it through proper channels, and were vindicated when the military finally acknowledged the encounters were genuine. Graves went further, founding Americans for Safe Aerospace specifically to create a reporting infrastructure that removes stigma—because he understood that genuine mystery requires genuine investigation, not silence.
When trained observers report documented encounters and official skepticism gives way to official acknowledgment, that's worth understanding. It suggests our institutions can eventually confront uncomfortable facts, even when those facts challenge comfortable assumptions.
Beat the odds
This had a 0.6% chance of leaking — someone talked anyway.
Conspirators
~500Large op
Secret kept
2.8 years
Time to 95% exposure
500+ years
